Aquaculture
Smoltification | Low Salinity Technology | Crustacean Research
The SuperSmolt® Program takes advantage of MariCal's detailed knowledge of calcium sensing receptors (CaSRs) as nutrient salinity sensors in salmonids and is applied to juvenile salmon and trout for a 3-6 week interval prior to their transfer as smolts from a freshwater hatchery to sea cages.
The SuperSmolt® Program is a combined water treatment and specialty feed process that pre-acclimates the fish to seawater despite the fact that the fish remains in freshwater containing only dilute concentrations of calcium and magnesium salts. Use of the SuperSmolt® Program allows hatchery operators added production flexibility to smoltify fish outside of the normal smoltification window and to obtain multiple benefits that are realized after seawater transfer, including reductions in stress, seawater mortalities and improvement in economic feed conversion ratios (FCRecon).
MariCal's business model has been to target licensing of the SuperSmolt® Program to the commercial salmon production companies throughout Norway, UK/Ireland, Canada and Chile. The SuperSmolt® Program has been in use at all the leading global salmon producing companies.
In July 2008, MariCal established a global license for its smoltification technology, the SuperSmolt® Program with Europharma AS, the Norwegian-based daughter company of Nordly Holdings AS located in Leknes, Norway.
Rearing of Marine Food Fish in Freshwater
This technology application is based on MariCal's detailed knowledge of the multiple roles that CaSR function as nutrient salinity sensors in marine fish that are normally restricted to seawater. MariCal has successfully developed this application of the CaSR technology to the commercial scale testing phase. Rearing Marine Food Fish in Freshwater consists of a combined water treatment and specialty feed process that permits the rearing of marine food fish, such as cobia, in very low salinity or near-freshwater conditions.
This proprietary technology is enabling since it permits the aquaculture production of high value marine species in sites far inland from coastal land and provide a new high value fish for producers who are currently using recirculation facilities to grow other freshwater species such as tilapia. Such large scale inland production facilities are already permitted as compared to the present challenges of establishing ocean rearing facilities in either near or offshore sites within the United States, Europe and other countries.
MariCal has applied its CaSR technology through a licensing business model in a joint-venture partnership established with Blue Ridge Aquaculture of Martinsville, Virginia to form Low Salinity, Inc. (LSI). This venture, dedicated to the development and commercial production of marine food fish, crustaceans and mollusks, utilizes MariCal's CaSR technology in low water salinity conditions with Blue Ridge Aquaculture's recirculating aquaculture systems proprietary know-how, for the purposes of food production on a worldwide basis. Virginia Cobia Farms, a preceding joint-venture between MariCal and Blue Ridge Aquaculture formed in September 2006 is now a wholly owned subsidiary of LSI.
Crustacean Growth Enhancement (Shrimp)
Global shrimp production occurs in both low- and high-salinity environments. Multiple studies have found that the ionic components of water used to rear shrimp have a profound effect both on survival and growth.
The osmotic challenges the shrimp industry faces can be addressed with MariCal's calcium sensing receptor (CaSR) technology. MariCal has utilized its molecular biology resources to clone and characterize the CaSR gene in crustaceans and shown that it possesses a similar structure and function to CaSRs in finfish.
MariCal is applying its expertise on the role of the CaSR in shrimp to address significant improvements in feed conversion ratio (FCR) and molting synchronization of shrimp production. Low and high salinity production environments in the shrimp industry can be enhanced by MariCal's CaSR technology to improve osmotic regulation.
Crustacean Settlement Disruption (Anti-fouling)
MariCal has developed the fundamental proprietary science behind how invertebrate marine organisms like barnacles "sense" differences in the ionic and nutrient composition of various environments, including surfaces that they attach to and grow upon, leading to biofouling. The Company has demonstrated that the calcium sensing receptor (CaSR) is present in crustaceans (barnacles) and other marine invertebrate fouling species. MariCal has characterized these nutrient salinity sensors at gene, tissue and whole organism levels and has demonstrated that highly specific non-metallic CaSR modulators act to disrupt the normal process of settlement, attachment and metamorphosis in barnacles both in laboratory-based cyprid assay methods as well as in immersion testing.
MariCal's knowledge of the role of CaSRs in the life cycles of biofouling organisms can lead to the development of non-metal based products to prevent the biological fouling of ship hulls, oil rigs, water intakes, net pens and other surfaces maintained in marine and/or freshwater environments.
